The Private and Social Lifetime Cost of Fuel Cell, Hybrid, and Conventional Vehicles

AVCEM – an electric and gasoline vehicle design and lifetime cost model – designs a motor vehicle to meet range and performance requirements specified by the modeler, and then calculates the initial retail cost and total lifetime cost of the designed vehicle. The model can be used to investigate the relationship between the lifetime cost -- the total cost of vehicle ownership and operation over the life of the vehicle -- and important parameters in the design and use of the vehicle.

Yongling Sun's research is based on AVCEM and LEM, and the overarching goal is to provide an important reference for policy development and industry investment decisions by means of comparing different alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) on a societal lifecycle cost basis and estimating buy- down cost (cumulative incremental expenditures to bring down hydrogen FCV technology to societal-lifecycle cost parity with competitors) of hydrogen FCVs with several hydrogen production pathways, relative to conventional gasoline vehicle.

Brent Riffel’s research focuses on the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption of several hydrogen pathways using and compares these results with similar values for conventional and other alternative technologies using LEM.  This work will demonstrate the range of lifecycle emissions for numerous alternative fuel pathways, the major sources present in the lifecycle and the potential emissions savings compared to the existing conventional system. The research will include a sensitivity analysis of important factors to determine how lifecycle emissions vary for a given pathway, and particularly how assumed vehicle fuel economy impacts calculated well-to-wheel values. 

Publications from this project:

Lipman, Timothy E., Mark A. Delucchi, "A Retail and Lifetime Cost Analysis of Hybrid Electric Vehicles," International Journal of Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment Volume 11, Issue 2, March 2006, Pages 115-132.

Delucchi, Mark A. (2005) AVCEM: Advanced Vehicle Cost and Energy Use Model. Overview of AVCEM. Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis, Research Report UCD-ITS-RR-05-17(1)

Lipman, Timothy E. and Mark A. Delucchi (2003) Hybrid Electric Vehicle Design: Retail and Lifecycle Cost Analysis. Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis, Research Report UCD-ITS-RR-03-01

Research Faculty: Mark A. Delucchi, Timothy E. Lipman
Graduate Student Researchers: Yongling Sun, Brent Riffel
Funding: Hydrogen Pathways Program